Published 4:00 am, Sunday, May 14, 2006

Photo: BEAWIHARTA

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A street vendor displays the first edition of the Indonesian version of Playboy magazine in Jakarta April 21, 2006. Indonesian Playboy's publishers are weighing whether to print again after violent protests over the first issue, now being offered on eBay as a collector's item. REUTERS/Beawiharta 0 less

A street vendor displays the first edition of the Indonesian version of Playboy magazine in Jakarta April 21, 2006. Indonesian Playboy's publishers are weighing whether to print again after violent protests ... more

2006-05-14 04:00:00 PDT Jakarta, Indonesia -- If Hugh Hefner saw the sanitized photographs featured in the first edition of Playboy Indonesia, the octogenarian founder of the world's most famous skin magazine would probably need to reach for his Viagra to feel anything erotic.

In the centerfold, all evidence of Miss April's nipple and the pigmented skin surrounding it has been airbrushed out, her demure proportions and midriff concealed by a lacy powder blue slip and matching pair of sensible briefs.

But despite art directors' deft navigation of the strict obscenity and nudity clauses in Indonesia's pornography legislation, it is unlikely that a second edition of Playboy Indonesia will ever reach newsstands in the world's most populous Muslim nation.

A month ago, the magazine's offices were ransacked by a group of 300 extreme Islamists who call themselves the Islamic Defenders Front. Police looked on as windows were smashed, yet no arrests have been made.

Days later, Editor in Chief Erwin Arnada announced the indefinite suspension of future editions.

"The police say we have broken no laws," Arnada told reporters as he left a police station in Jakarta after questioning.

The storm is not likely to blow over quickly. In an interview, the front's chief said its attacks were just a warning to publishers and that other groups could do considerably more damage.

The front "made these protests not only to protect society but also to protect the media itself," said H. Muhammad Ridwan Voderi, the group's secretary general.

"There are many other groups who are against pornography and the media, and they can do more damage than what the (front) has done, such as bombing the offices," he said. "We were just trying to get through to the media before the other groups."

The alarming comments also reflect sensitivity over the Iraq war and the war on terror.

"Playboy represents the image of the West and with everything going on in the world lately, with the tension between the United States and the Islamic world, anything that represents the West is considered anti-Muslim," says Gadis Arivia, founder of the women's activist magazine Jurnal Perempuan.

For the front, the name Playboy also represents a perceived moral decay that pervades the West, which they claim to be preventing the spread of across their secular nation.

"We told the publishers before they started they should change the name because the image of Playboy internationally is very bad, its identity is pornographic images," Voderi said.

The ferment over Playboy Indonesia is just one chapter in a debate about pornography laws that is polarizing women's rights groups, Islamic fundamentalists and a government which is struggling to sustain the democratic momentum that began with the fall of former President Suharto's regime in 1998.

An anti-pornography bill is being vigorously debated in parliament and is expected to pass by the middle of the year.

Opponents argue that Indonesia already has three pieces of legislation regulating content on television and in the media, in addition to a criminal code which prohibits the distribution of pornographic material.

The new legislation, say women's rights groups, is just a smokescreen for a Sharia (Islamic) based law that is fundamentally anti-women.

"When you look at the bill, there is nothing really in it about pornography or the distribution of pornographic material," Arivia said.

"But is says a lot about what women can and cannot wear, what they can and cannot do, where they can go ... a lot of Sharia law that restricts women."

Arivia is one of many critics who fear that if the bill finds its way through the parliament in its current incarnation, men's magazines won't be the only thing forced to cover up.

"The new bill doesn't respect the diversity of culture, and is a threat to the freedom of speech of artists ... and our identity," said Husna Mulya, another women's rights activist.

"It will regulate what people can wear and which parts of the body can be exposed. It could also see writings, poems, songs, etc. banned because they contain references to eroticism or sexuality."

The defenders front has also made claims that pornography is provoking Muslim men to commit violent sexual crimes against women in Indonesia.

"There have already been a lot of cases of crime due to the effects of pornography in magazines, television, movies, etc. Nowadays we are hearing of fathers raping their daughters, sons raping their mothers and so on. Will the media take responsibility for this? Of course not. They don't want to know the effect their magazines has on people; they don't care," Voderi said.

Which is an indication that it will take much more than an airbrushed nipple to lower temperatures in the world's most populous Muslim nation.